my cup runneth over (Psalm 23:1-6)

my cup runneth over (Psalm 23:1-6)

 

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

³ He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

 

Intro) 

The windmill is one of the most distinguished structures in Netherland. What turns a windmill? Of course the wind. Without wind a windmill would be useless. Can a man turn a windmill by his/her force? No way. Life of faith is just the same ourselves cannot sustain our faith we need our Lord’s help and guidance. So what is like a wind to windmill in our faith? What makes our faith keeps going? Let us think about that.

 

Body)

 

1. Thankful heart is essential piece of happy life.

    

Prophet Isaiah taught us long time ago in Isaiah 40, “²⁹ He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. ³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

³¹ But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Just like the scripture says, our lord renew our strength. Man cannot live a life of faith without God’s help.

2. Every man has their own standard. There are three steps of judging him/herself. Those are past, present and future. Past is special because all of our past experiences and precious memories are coming from our past. Lots of us like to talk about our past. The present can be various because some of us can be happy and some of us are not. So, many of us hope our future to be happy.

 

Lastly the future is little bit more complicated. We sure expect it to be better and also we all have our own goal that we want to achieve. Sometimes we struggle to achieve our goals and we see some people lost and destroy themselves or relationships around them.

 

Throughout this process about self-evaluation people often forget the most important thing, which is a thank. When we look back there must be something that we should be thankful. In present we should be thankful for all the good people we met. Hunt the good things not bad things.

 

This happened in Denver. A couple were suffocating themselves in the car while they were sleeping without noticing huge amount of carbon dioxide going in to their body system. Thankfully EMT saved them by breaking their car window and rescued them. However these couple sent the bill to fix their car window to the EMT. How ungrateful? We should not be like this couple. We should not be ungrateful children to our god.

 

Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “¹⁶ Rejoice evermore. ¹⁷ Pray without ceasing. ¹⁸ In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Yes, this is what God wants from us.  Brothers and sisters, we should give thanks to everything. Happiness does not come from richness it comes from realization.

 

B. Thanks from understanding

 

When I was a high school student. There was this Chinese restaurant that I passed by every day. one day, when I passed by the restaurant I was complaining my short height in my mind and boom I hit the sign of that restaurant and then I thought, if I was shorter I could have avoided hitting that sign. Then I realized I should stop complaining about myself.

 

2. When I was at the basic training one of the physical trainings was the hopping a long log over our head and switching side to side of our shoulders with our battle buddies. Well I was short so the log stopped before it hits my shoulder. I was very thankful for my shortness our God always provide in His way!

 

3. Dr. Soper who is a criminal psychologist says people in the jail and monastery live in pretty much same living condition but one always complain and one always thankful. 

There are three types of thanks:

• One is material which is pretty common thanks that we give.

• Secondly, there are philosophical thanks which come from realization of what we have.

• Third are thanks coming from our faith. The ultimate thanks that come from our heart because of the Jesus our lord saved us from our sins.

 

Today’s scripture is the perfect example of how we should thank. King David thanks God for being with him in the past and present. Then he is thankful because he knows that God will be with him in the future with lots of blessings.

Think about David’s past, his life was threatened and he had no real place to stay. However he still thanked that God was with him and made him a King of Israel. David said “my cup runneth over” with God’s blessing. I think that verse is a most beautiful phrase to thank our God.

Con)

 

All humans have a cup inside of us that is empty and unable to fill with anything except the God’s grace. What are you trying to fill your cup of desire? Ask yourself if your cup is filled with God’s grace? If you been filling your cup with unworthy worldly things? Empty it out and start new with God’s grace and faithful prays. Amen.

 

070217 by Ik sun Ahn